A police officer stands guard of a building on Park Place in lower Manhattan where a piece of one of the planes destroyed in the September 11 attacks was found. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

New York City police have removed a suspected 9/11 plane part found between two buildings near the World Trade Center site, and the medical examiner says no potential human remains have been found there.

Officers used a pulley system to raise the jagged, 255-pound metal piece on Wednesday. Onlookers took pictures as it was loaded onto a truck headed to a Brooklyn police facility.

The part was discovered a week ago, wedged in a narrow space between an apartment building and a mosque.

In 2010, the mosque prompted national debate about Islam and freedom of speech because it's located just blocks from ground zero.

Authorities believe the part is from one of the two hijacked airliners that brought down the trade center on September 11, 2001.